Business Success

Blockchain is an emerging technology for decentralised and transactional data sharing across a large network of untrusted participants. It enables new forms of distributed software architectures, where agreement on shared states can be established without trusting a central integration point. While many of us talk about how blockchain can change the way businesses operate and consumers get services, very of us have actually solutioned the projects or designed the architecture. Since blockchains are at an early stage, there is little product data or reliable technology evaluation available to compare different blockchains or even provide design decision points.

Based on my knowledge and understanding, I have tried to structure briefly, key design decision considerations for architecting a blockchain-based system.

Degree of decentralization

This is a deliberate decision of the project to let go of the control. Fully centralized systems exist today, but blockchain introduces decentralization. It is up to the project requirements whether you need to a fully decentralized system or a partial one (mostly useful for enterprise solutions).

Control of verification process

Verification process may also be a key consideration, by either allowing a fixed single verifier, x-of-y verifiers, random leader selection or all nodes as verifiers. This is again based on project requirements and should be weighed against the four key parameters mentioned in this article later.

Storage and Computation

While blockchains provide some unique properties, the amount of computational power and data storage space available on a blockchain network remains limited. It should be decided clearly, whether to keep transaction data, transaction collection (only hashes) or its computation (through smart contracts) on the blockchain or off the blockchain.

Visibility

You may chose to keep a blockchain private (within an organization), make it public or enter a consortium with a group of organizations. For business purposes, both private and public make little sense. While private blockchains defeat the purpose of blockchain and provide little RoI, public blockchains are too risky for a business.

Consensus

The choice of a consensus protocol is also a critical consideration for handling transactions and may also affect the choice of blockchain, mainly because there are not many blockchains which give an option of choosing a consensus mechanism.

The above design decision considerations should be weighed against the impact of the following key parameters:

Fundamental Design Principles of Blockchain

Concepts like immutability, transparency, etc as explained in my book ‘Internet of Transactions’

Cost Efficiency

The development effort and infrastructure required to build this solution.

Performance

Required Throughputs and Transactions per second

Flexibility

Interoperability and data exchange with other blockchains

This article is based on my ongoing research in this area, which is going to be a part of my next book on ‘How to Advise and Design Blockchain Solutions’.

I would love to hear any suggestions or contributions, write to me at mailme@dipenderb.com

Whistleblowers are important to every society and government. They are the honest people in the system which help with the checks and balances and report the wrongdoings and discrepancies. Therefore, governments & companies need to encourage them. They need to be protected and be reassured at the same time about their privacy and safety. If there is a robust system out there, which helps them file complaints anonymously, it can be a boost to the whistleblower system.

As I was going through the Whistleblowers Protection Act, 2011 in India, its salient features say:

The Act seeks to protect whistleblowers, i.e. persons making a public interest disclosure related to an act of corruption, misuse of power, or criminal offense by a public servant.

Any public servant or any other person including a non-governmental organization may make such a disclosure to the Central or State Vigilance Commission.

Every complaint has to include the identity of the complainant.

The Vigilance Commission shall not disclose the identity of the complainant except to the head of the department if he deems it necessary. The Act penalizes any person who has disclosed the identity of the complainant.

The Act prescribes penalties for knowingly making false complaints.

Although the law and policy makers try to ensure that the system works well and delivers the intended benefit, but there have been instances in the past where the whistleblowers have been harassed and even lost lives (although the reasons for losing their lives cannot be directly related to it, but the timelines can be). The problems that I find with this system are:

If someone leaks the identity or information, there’s no traceability as to who did it.

Let’s say there are 20 people involved in handling the complaint filed by the whistleblower, there’s no need for each of those to know the name and identity of the whistleblowers. We can restrict it to a few people only. This directly reduces the chances of the information leakage.

It is only a thought for now, if we can bring this system on blockchain and use the anonymity feature to our benefit, which has been perceived as a disadvantage until now. The Bitcoin, which is a public blockchain, hides the identity of people transacting bitcoins sounds beneficial for this purpose.

This directly delivers the following advantages:

Builds a reassuring system for the honest whistleblowers’ protection

Traces the complaint status in real time with transparency

Traces the information leakages in the system

Since the information and identity is available to few, it still keeps a check on false complaints filed.

I understand that the system has to be regulated and the government has to be open & honest at its heart to implement such a system. I would like to throw open this topic for discussion. What are your thoughts on it?

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Executive Summary

With the world becoming more and more transparent and businesses being more open, there is a greater need to use technology to make people more powerful. And telecom, which now has greater and broader role to play in our lives, more than just making and receiving calls, demands for innovative insights to make it more affordable and inclusive for everyone.

This whitepaper describes a new concept of ‘Data Exchange’, (similar to a stock exchange), which creates a transparent real time marketplace to enable the customers of telco (used for Telecom Operator) network, to freely buy and sell data. Telco will benefit by monetizing unused bandwidth and data and exposing various other services such as Digital TV, Music, etc to its customers. This shall be enabled by the blockchain technology, which has been considered by many at the forefront of technological revolution, through the usage of Etherium Blockchain and Smart Contracts. By building a truly open network, shifting power of monetizing unused data, telco’s brand shall also acquire trust and positivity, and the same time maintain its leadership in innovation in the telco space, apart from finding new revenue opportunities.

The Data Exchange, referred to as product in this document, proposed here, shall address the following:

Peer to Peer Data Exchange – Each user in the telco’s network, shall be able to buy and sell data with each other, which may be unused from their already bought data packages. Also, the data which is up for sale, can be bought by the user, at the following validity options: existing validity or +24 hours validity.

Real-time Data Marketplace – The buying and selling transactions shall be in real time and shall work like a stock exchange.

Security and Anonymity – Each user shall be transacting in this marketplace, without revealing their own identity. The identity shall, however, be maintained and secured by the telco.

Innovative Revenue Opportunities – Telco shall benefit from this concept by effectively utilizing unutilized bandwidth and unused data. Revenue opportunities such as charging a small commission from the buying and selling transactions, charging a small fee for extending the validity shall be the initial ones. Going forward, the users can be rewarded for buying and selling transactions in telco’s own currency, which can then be used to barter for other services such as data packages, ecommerce, music, movies, IoT, etc.

Roadmap

Phase 1: Development of the Product

High level and low level architecture to be charted

Product testing

Phase 2: PoC for small number of Users

Launch the product for a small group of users, enabling them to buy and sell unused data to each other in real time. Each user transacts through telco’s currency.

Iron out the issues and defects.

Phase 3: Launch of Service

Launch the product for public, enabling them to buy and sell unused data to each other in real time. Each user transacts through telco’s currency.

Add users to exchange, by incentivizing them with various schemes.

Phase 4: Enrichment of Offerings through Integrations

Integrate more and more services, within the ecosystem, to enable users to use the telco’s currency to buy and sell units of those services.

Phase 5: Future Alignments & Monetizing Options

Far-off monetizing options such as using collected data, IoT use cases and international expansion are not discussed here, which are possible if the above product is matured and stable

Telco Currency

What is it?

Telco Currency’s form can be decided at a later planning stage. However, the basic idea is to enable users to buy and sell unused mobile data. Let’s say, if a user has 400 MB of data, and the value of 1 MB data is 1 TelcoCoin (say that currency is called TelcoCoin), then the intrinsic value (inside the Telco ecosystem) of that 400 MB data is 400 TelcoCoins. This is to be noted that the Telco currency can also be in the form of ‘MB’. So, if a user sells 400 MB of data, say 10 MB are credited to him with future validity for his extended use.

The idea in contention is that there has to be a reward for the user who sells unused data, and that reward can be decided by aligning it with telco’s business objectives and future roadmap.

What can users do with it?

If a user has accumulated Telco Currency, following can be done with it,

Users will be able to use the currency to buy data packages from Telco (Phase 2 and beyond)

Users will be able to exchange their unused data with other products from the telco ecosystem such as buying movies, music, etc.

There shall be a separate mobile app and a web platform for users to buy and sell data.

Legal and Regulatory

The legal and regulatory aspects of maintaining Telco Currency (reward system) have to be explored and its scope shall be limited keeping in mind the regulatory and legal compliance.

Benefits and Key Drivers

Digital Literacy

With more and more people becoming aware on how to use data by streaming content, surfing social media, etc, this serves as a key driver to implement this concept.

Smartphones Affordability

With smartphone devices becoming more and more affordable to the Indians, a vast number of people need to use data and at the same time, use it cost-effectively. This is a perfect case of monetizing unused data for the end user.

Reduced Margins for the Operators

Telecom in India is at a crucial stage, where cost pressures due to stiff competition are high and operators are on the lookout of new revenue streams. Finding new ways of revenue generation is a way to earn more.

Disruption with Blue Ocean Strategy

Indian telecom space has been disrupted recently with per GB cost coming down significantly. The traditional revenue streams have been challenged and the OTT players have made the telcos think on how they operate and run their business with the existing models and technologies. This implementation will keep telco at a leading position, by creating a new space for competition and not competing on existing models.

New Technologies such as IoT

With upcoming technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things), this concept has interesting and futuristic use cases and will drive higher usage and network optimisation.

Technology Architecture

Overview

The product shall be based on the concepts of a stock exchange. However, it can be a business-driven decision to let the price be fluctuating, as in an exchange, or be fixed by telco, or based on certain other criteria.

The high-level architecture is shown below for reference

Component Overview

The following is a brief functional description of the components shown in the above figure. The components shown are only segregated based on their possible functions, which are as follows.

Web Interface & Mobile app

The web interface, which can be a part of the telco’s portal, allows users to view live feed of buy and sell streams, with quota of data and validity, place orders, view order history, manage Currency balance, etc. Each user can login using their mobile number and password on the portal.

Data Exchange

This is the main component which carries the trading capabilities. The various sub-parts or functionalities of this component are:

Subscriber Identity Manager

This component maintains the identity mapping of all the telco’s customers registered on the product. As soon as a user registers here, a public ID shall be allocated to it and will be used for all future transactions, avoiding the exposure of the user’s mobile number on the exchange.

Pricing Platform

This component contains the commission structure charged by telco on the transactions performed by its users. Also, it contains complex algorithms to calculate the price of the data put on sale. Since, it may be a legal hurdle to use data as a tradable commodity, whose price is determined on demand and supply, the price of the data put on sale could be calculated based on the time remaining for validity of the data pack, amount of data and other such factors. This algorithm formation has further scope of discussion.

Order Executor

The order executor component handles all the buy and sell orders on the data exchange and handles interactions with the telecom network.

Blockchain Translator

This component in contention may be required to interact with the Etherium blockchain and shall serve as a translator, if required.

Etherium Blockchain

The Etherium blockchain contains a ledger of buy and sell transactions placed by the users of the platform and is visible to all users. There are smart contracts on this blockchain which are triggered based on fulfilment of certain events and lead to execution of data transactions.

Use Cases and Workflows

User Registration

A user shall be required to download a separate app, or operate from web interface, if the user wishes to buy or sell data. On downloading the app or visiting a relevant section on the portal, the user is required to register for the service.

The user shall be asked to input their mobile number. After an OTP verification, the user is asked to generate its password for future login. Now, this user has access to the real time market for buying and selling data and can see the live feed.

Let us understand the sequence of events proposed in the above flow diagram. A user registers on the product, using the mobile number and is verified with an OTP. This request is then sent to the telecom network to validate if this user exists on the network. Once validated, this user is provided with a Public ID and a first time password.

The public ID helps to maintain anonymity of the user and does not expose the mobile number on the exchange.

User to User Data Transaction

When a user places an order to sell and another user buys data, it is a valid transaction. When selling unused data, the user needs to put the unused data on sale on the exchange, which means that this unused data has to be split in parts from the data package offered to the user by the telco. Once the user puts the unused data on sale, making an offer, the buying party will offer its funds to buy this data.

In the above proposed flow diagram, let us understand each step, one by one. User A wants to sell a part of the owned data. A request is submitted for the same to the product through the portal/app. This request shall have details such as amount of data, user’s public id and the current validity of the data put on sale. The product then, validates with the network, if this user has the required quota to be put on sale. Also, the product calculates the price at which this data can be sold, using the algorithms on the Pricing Platform component. Once validated and submitted by the user, the sell order is placed on the platform.

Now, when a user (User B) wants to buy data, its buy order is placed on the exchange, with input as the amount of data required, the validity (optional) and the proposed buy price. The user shall also be able to see the live stream of buy orders to know the lowest buy price and highest sell price. As soon as the order is placed, the amount is blocked from the available funds. Upon matching the proposed price with the lowest buy price, the order is sent for execution on the blockchain, returning the commission of the transaction to telco and providing User A with the sale funds. The request is then placed to the telecom network for modifying User A’s & User B’s data packages. Both the users are then notified by the exchange about the status of the transaction.

‘Thing’ to ‘Thing’ – A Futuristic Use Case

This is a futuristic use case, specifically for IoT or the Internet of Things. Let us assume a scenario where your assistant, such as Amazon Echo or Google Home is using up data. For an ideal scenario, we assume that the assistant is interacting with various devices inside your home. It also keeps track of the amount of data that is being used by the various devices at your home. The assistant is integrated with the telco data exchange in such a way that as soon as the remaining data reaches a certain threshold, the assistant inputs request to the data exchange and buys more data automatically at a cheap price.

Another similar use case could be from connected cars, where the car which when runs out of data (due to consumption from GPS, apps, etc), orders it automatically from the market and buys from the exchange. The process flows will be similar to the one shown in earlier section, however, the user will replaced by a ‘device’.

Summary

This proposed whitepaper attempts to throw light on a very relevant use case, especially for the Indian Telecom market, looking to create a win-win situation for the telco and its customers and at the same time, empowering its customers to monetize their unused data. This also marks the introduction of blockchain on the telco’s network with the simplest of use cases and has a very futuristic approach.

“You can’t stop things like Bitcoin. It will be everywhere and the world will have to readjust. World governments will have to readjust” — John McAfee, Founder of McAfee

Now that you are here, two things are clear :

1. You have heard about Bitcoin, and people making money through it

2. You want to know how to be a part of this opportunity of a lifetime

Before I take you through the process, I would like to advice the following:

a) Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are highly volatile in price. So, Start small with the intent to understand the space before dreaming of making millions.

b) Take every “expert” advice on Bitcoin price speculation with a pinch of salt. Experts sitting on either side of the fence are trying to predict prices of Bitcoin. But you need too know that the space is changing rapidly and its hard to predict what will happen 1, 2 or 5 years down the line.

Now, let’s get to the 3 steps of buying your first Bitcoins.

Step #1: Choose an Exchange

Why do I need a specialized cryptocurrency exchange?

You need an exchange because, you are exchanging your ‘FIAT’ currency (govt. backed money like INR, USD, EUR etc) into cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, Ethereum. To start with, it’s preferable that you only buy Bitcoin or Ethereum at first.

In order to buy Bitcoin, you need a find a cryptocurrency exchange in your country which can enable purchase of Bitcoin with the FIAT available. These exchanges also let you change one cryptocurrency into other.

As a Bitcoin investor from India, I am listing down prominent Indian exchanges:

1) Koinex.in — It has look and feel of a trading platform. Easy for traders. Better exchange prices in comparison to other exchanges.

2) Unocoin.com — One of the first Indian exchanges. Good track record. Browser and mobile app functionality.

3) Zebpay.com — Also one of the earliest exchanges. Good track record. Mobile only platform.

Read later: Which exchange do I prefer and why?

For my global readers, with FIAT as USD or Euro, you may register at the following exchanges

1) Coinbase.com — A very trustworthy exchange valued at over $1Billion. Only USD transaction. US Based. Considered more expensive than others . Supports 26 countries. Not for Indian residents as of now.

These above exchanges will need you to submit your KYC with them to link your bank account with the exchange account. This is mandatory and a norm for any exchange. DONT FORGET TO SET UP TWO FACTOR AUTHENTICATION.

Step #3: Buying the Bitcoin

Once you have created and authenticated your account, the exchange itself will create an internal bitcoin wallet for you. This is called an exchange wallet. Whenever you buy bitcoin, it will show up in this wallet.

You can now buy Bitcoin through credit card or wire transfer from your bank account. However credit card transaction has an additional charge which varies between 5–7% depending on the exchange.

Well Done! You are now a Bitcoin Investor..

So there you have it! You have successfully bought your first Bitcoin and it is there in your exchange wallet.

But we never trust the exchanges to keep our digital currencies safe for us. You need to secure them by using Desktop wallets and some other options.

Books are a great source of learning helping you to keep yourself abreast with the best practices and generate new ideas. And this is a key habit that super successful people (Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey and many more) have in common…they read a lot!

“Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.” – Warren Buffet

For people who are young at business, it is all the more important to spend some time of the day reading books. Here’s a list of 5 books to get you started,

Test your Idea

Will It Fly?: How to Test Your Next Business Idea So You Don’t Waste Your Time and Money by Pat Flynn

When you are starting, the very first step is to know if your idea is viable or not. This book helps you exactly with this. The practical approach taken up in this book makes it easy to test your idea through some exercises. It even gives a case study to guide you.
Stop rushing into businesses born from half-baked ideas, misguided theories, and other forms of self-delusion. A lack of proper validation kills more businesses than anything else. As Joel Barker says, “Speed is only useful if you’re running in the right direction.” Will It Fly? will help you make sure you are clear for takeoff. It answers questions like:
– Does your business idea have merit?
– Will it succeed in the market you’re trying to serve, or will it just be a waste of time and resources?
– Is it a good idea for you?
In other words, will it fly?

Create a Marketing Plan

The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand Out From The Crowd by Allan Dib

A marketing plan is essential for your business, but a lengthy one is tough to make. This helps you with creating a one-pager to get a kickstart because having a one-page marketing plan is better than having none.
In The 1-Page Marketing Plan, serial entrepreneur and rebellious marketer Allan Dib reveals a marketing implementation breakthrough that makes creating a marketing plan simple and fast. It’s literally a single page, divided up into nine squares. With it you’ll be able to map out your own sophisticated marketing plan and go from zero to marketing hero.

Build Uniqueness into your Business

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel

The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One , legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things. Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique.

Know First Hand Experiences

Start-up Sutra: What the Angels Won’t Tell You About Business and Life by Rohit Prasad

Startups stir-up curiosity like no other and everyone is equally inquisitive to know the A to Z of these businesses. Start-up Sutra is a book by Rohit Prasad that, as the title suggests, elaborates on the intricacies of starting a business and how it takes over your life in good and bad ways. The book cites first-hand experiences of entrepreneurs and states the pros and cons of the business world that one would definitely want to read. All in all, a book complete with stories that will keep you hooked onto it while arousing curiosity about the business world at the same time.

Before you Quit your Job

This book is based on insights gained from personal experiences of successful entrepreneurs. The book has a rich mix of illustrations and anecdotal stories that tells you how you can become an entrepreneur even if you are a student, home-maker or have a full time job and if you are risk-averse.
Read this book if you are about to launch your first start-up, or if you’re thinking of doing so.

Startups are all about innovation, solving problems & fast-paced growth.

While you concentrate on innovating and solving problems, time runs out to beat the competition and grow really fast. Of course, one of the main ingredients for your growth is your product, what problem does it solve and what differentiates it from the others. This requires immense focus and effort on your part. And then, there are other things to take care, like creating presentations about your product, detailing out a marketing strategy for the launch, evaluating your business model for future growth & sustainability and more such tasks.

First things first, will you lose control? Or will someone steal ideas if you outsource non-core tasks? The answer is no. Firstly, sign a contract, which is Non-Competing & Non-Disclosure in nature. And also, give only relevant access to outsiders. Thirdly, if someone is doing a one-off engagement with you, it might be a problem, but if someone’s job is to consult, then they will not leave their business and try to implement your idea. Regarding losing control, make sure every recommendation or plan’s outcome is discussed and agreed. Once it is detailed, which you don’t have to do, discuss it again. Discussion offers benefits, it takes lesser time and the brainstorming generates creativity. It’s your business and nothing can be go beyond you without your consensus.

You may find a lot of content on web relating to why you need a consultant, I’ll summarize it here:

You save time and effort

You get to know the best practices

You need business planning & a strategic plan

You need a step by step plan to reach your desired outcome

You need clarity and help to automate & stay organized

You need a fresh perspective & an unbiased opinion

You need someone to boost your confidence & brainstorm problems

You save on hiring costs & salaries (only contractual fee)

But before giving this job to someone, consider this, apart from the common considerations:

Pricing should be linked with the desired outcome. If you need to boost your sales and you hire someone to make a plan for it, an ideal pricing that will give you confidence is to charge you a small upfront fee (say 10-15%) and rest of it by sharing 50% profit for first ‘X’ unit sales.

You should not need to follow up. Instead, the hired person follows up or reminds you of the tasks/meetings. This saves your time & effort.

A comprehensive Penalty Clause which is agreed by both, upfront. This helps to be clear on what to do, if something goes off-track.

A practical & detailed approach. Plans are usually good to hear, but when it comes to execution, a lot of problems, loop holes & missing information pop up. Agree to a submitted plan, if you find a practical & executable plan.

If you hire a professional consultant, you will get more time to build the value proposition. Some of the other ingredients that will help you grow fast are,

Be humble & patient

If possible, talk face to face to your potential/present customers

Be open & flexible to change

And keep learning!

All the best.

Please share your comments and opinion. I’d love to hear them!

If you like what you just read, please like & share so that others may stumble upon this.

When Vikram Bakshi, reinstated as the Managing Director of Connaught Plaza Restaurants Private Limited (CRPL), McDonalds JV in India, drafts out a plan with Board of Directors to reopen 43 outlets in North and East India, the biggest challenge for him is to win back the trust of Indians in this brand which has been a synonym for burgers since October 1996.

Vikram Bakshi (who was dramatically ousted in August 2013) and McDonalds, have been involved in a long legal battle, the outcome of which is the reappointment of Vikram Bakshi as the MD, though he and his wife were board members with voting rights on all decisions. So, was the closure of outlets an outcome of a personal battle? Whatever the reason may be, the result is that McDonalds has been dethroned by Dominos, from its pole position in 2013 as the largest QSR chain in the country.

Source: Euromonitor

Philip Kotler’s description of the 3 F’s of Marketing of Services: Fast, Flexible and Friendly have to be revisited while thinking of revamping the business in North and East India. Here are some of my thoughts after an analysis, on what can be done now, assuming that the problem has been taken care of (due to which outlets were shut down)

Educate the Customers about the Problem

Being transparent about the problem that occurred wins customer trust and indicates that there is nothing to hide. The customers will come back if they know what happened and how did it get resolved. The Corporate communication team has some work to do here.

Appoint a Crisis Manager

The very first thing that Vikram Bakshi can do is to appoint a Crisis Manager to deal with specific goals such as increasing customer loyalty, store footfalls or build emotional connect with customers. A person focussed on this task is important as there will be other operational and legal issues to handle.

Add Product Variants

At least one or two, fresh and new products should be introduced, along with the old and famous menu, which will be a value proposition for customers to come back to McDonalds. Introduce new categories, add festival related products (develops connect) targeted towards North and East India. They should also not rule out the possibility of adding wheat bread burgers to give the urban customer a health variant of enjoying a burger at a lower calorie count, but the taste of a McDonalds burger.

Beef Up Advertising

It is important to communicate with the customers frequently and directly. The more the customers see and hear from McDonalds, the more they are likely to come back to the stores. This is something which McDonalds have done well in the past.

Take responsibility for Customer Service

An impeccable customer service is a WOW factor. It will only remove the barriers for a customer standing outside a store to enter, once again into this store. Do something about sorting long queues or online ordering.

The battle of the pole position with the likes of Dominos, and the ever growing awareness of the Indian consumers about the benefits of organic and health-friendly products will not be easy. However, given the scale, experience and the food of this company, McDonalds will not leave the ground easily. It will be therefore, interesting to see if the Indian customer comes back to McDonalds and says “I’m lovin it”.

When you scratch yourself against a protruding nail, put the bandage on your hand immediately. But do not stop here! Fix the nail and hammer it in.

The analogy here draws our attention to solving business problems, or any problem as a matter of fact! To fix anything that is hurting your business, take an immediate action but think long term. What most businesses and startups do is to stop after the immediate fix! That reproduces the same problem at a later time, only to spend more time & resources to fix the same thing. Once you apply the immediate fix, invest some more time to fix it once and for all. So if your product sales is not achieving its target, put an immediate fix. You may employ a few more sales executives, get market research data or buy lead data, etc to achieve your target but do not stop here and think long term. Sit down with your team to brainstorm.

But this surely, isn’t an easy task to do! So, here’s a quick guide!

What is a problem and why does it occur?

According to me, a problem may be defined in broadly, three ways:

– a deviation from the standard

A business may not be achieving what the industry or the market is expecting it to achieve as a standard. It may be 100% on-time delivery, 95% QA, etc.

– a gap between the actual and desired condition

A business may be achieving 100% on-time delivery where on-time is a lead time of 2 weeks, it may now look to offer a 1 week lead time with same efficiency.

– an unfulfilled customer need

A business may be looking to solve an unaddressed problem such as many startups like Paytm, Grofers, Flipkart, etc have done!

Solving any of these problems and fixing them for long term has the benefits which makes it worthy of investing time and resources. It develops a common understanding of the problem, business-wide and thus reduces the time lost in discussing about the problem rather than solving it. It ensures that the same problems doesn’t occur again. Also, using the proven and standardized methods of solving problems increases chances of success in lesser time!

Companies such as Ford motors with their ‘8 Discipline‘ method, 6 Sigma with the ‘DMAIC‘ approach, Toyota’s Business Practice, PDCA method and many more have researched methods to solve their problems, which all follow a similar pattern but have been fine tuned to their need.

So, what’s the pattern?

First step. Choose a team

It is important to identify people with the right skills and attitude who yo think shall be able to contribute to the problem solving discussion. The team should touch upon all the possible areas that the problem could touch upon as you think at this point of time. For a sales problem, you may call upon people from sales, marketing & product. Preferably, a team of 3-5 people is good for a discussion, do not overcrowd.

Second step. Clarify and scope the problem

It is important to then specify the problem clearly. The more clearly you define and scope the problem, the better the solution will be and in much lesser time. When a team sits to discuss on a problem’s solution, the discussion usually goes haywire with no result and consuming lot of time. If your sales are down, write that your “Q1 Sales for FY 2016-17 down by X%”

Third step. Break the problem down

Address the 5Ws and 2Hs. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? How many?

Who are the people associated with the problem? What is their problem as in first step? When was the problem identified? Where did the problem occur? Why did it occur as reported? How did the problem occur (can you reproduce it)? How many problems occured to define its size and frequency?

And while you are breaking & scoping the problem, prepare an A3 report simultaneously which, in brief, is a one pager story of the problem.

Fourth step. Analyze the Root Cause

To identify the root cause, it is important for the team which is solving the problem to reproduce the problem and see. If it is not possible to reproduce, a ground study is required. For instance, as per our sales example, taking customer feedback personally or talking to the sales representative directly will help.

Brainstorm all possible causes of the problem and make sure to jot them down either on a whiteboard or a common screen. Usually a whiteboard will help much more as it gives a free hand. A fishbone diagram technique is helpful to direct the brainstorming session. This technique has different categories such as 5Ms, 8Ps and 5Ss depending upon the type of industry.

Apply the 5 Why technique, which means that ask a Why on the problem again and again until you don’t have an answer. Here, 5 is just a number to emphasize that many Why’s are required to get to the root cause. Sometimes, even more than 5 Why’s may be required.

Fifth step. Develop Counter Measures

Once the team has finished the root cause analysis and brainstorming, it is important to develop counter measures in order to suppress the root cause of the problem ensuring that it does not repeat. While developing counter measures, it is also necessary to ensure that these do not arise another problem.

Sixth step. See it through

This is a time taking step and requires perseverance and the team should not give up in this phase. Put the counter measures to work and monitor the new process regularly for any deviations or difficulties in implementation and tweaking required, if any. Treat this like a beta testing phase.

Seventh Step. Evaluate the Results

Once you have seen and monitored the process long enough for your satisfaction, evaluate the results of the solution implemented.

Eighth step. Standardize Success, Learn from Failures

Document the way the problem occured, circumstances around it and how you solved it. This will help standardize the success. This is where the A3 report suggested above is useful.

This eight step guide can be applied to any business problems such as issues in product quality, product returns, human errors in a process, inventory problems, dipping sales, innovating to sustain competition and attain market leadership, increasing employee satisfaction to retain talent and so on!